Small Business Stories - ANSA Automotive

Alex Fees: I am Alex Fees on Small Business Television we are coming to you from SEMA 2008. That specialty equipment market association here at the Las Vegas convention center. And joining me now is Hal Branstetter, Hal good to have you here sir. Hal Branstetter: Yes thank you. Alex Fees: He is the sales manager of a company called ANSA. ANSA all caps. Hal Branstetter: That's right, Alex Fees: And Hal was just telling me its space on a river out of Italy. Hal Branstetter: Yes, I can't tell you a lot of the details about the river exactly. But there is some relationship to the name and that's because ANSA is an Italian based Exhaust Company. Alex Fees: So you said very well right into that. Hal Branstetter: Yes, yes they originated back in a late fifty's with their exhaust focus on exotic automobiles in Italy. At least for Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati. And in the 70s when the Italian automobiles all over in United States looking for an exhaust need such as Alpha and Fiat, ANSA saw the opportunity to create a distribution facility in United States. Alex Fees: Really. Hal Branstetter: So we began building exhausts for, eventually BMW, Mercedes kind of a sport type products and we have expanded into the original equipment exhaust line. We are still known for that very well, which you just be pretty much any kind of import application just replacement exhaust, but they are all direct fit. And our big thing was SEMA right now that we are really focused in is diesel performance. Because we are exhaust players, we jumped into that about five years ago and branded it under the name called Silverline. Alex Fees: Silverline. Hal Branstetter: Yes, and the diesel market really exploded pretty fast within the last five years. And right now we are one of the top players in it. Basically it's a stainless steel product and it's an upgrade for stock systems dealing with larger diameters and some thing's like that. Alex Fees: Alright then Hal just told me their offices -- they are about make in Georgia and they also have a satellite in California somewhere. Hal Branstetter: Yes, yes Commerce California is our branch location. Alex Fees: Alright but these makes some models, you are talking about these no longer foreign cars, here in America, really, I mean technically they are but. Hal Branstetter: It was a very big change for us to go from import applications to diesel. But once again because we are exhaust, we know exhaust. When we've saw the opportunity with diesel performance, we said why not. Let's take a look at it and it proved to be good for us, probably because we know the lines. Alex Fees: Hal tell me about ANSA's history here at SEMA, you guys been here before. Hal Branstetter: SEMA yeah, yeah because of our background with the Ferrari applications and the BMW as I said earlier. ANSA, basically to sum it up, if you think about it back in the 70s. There really was not a direct fit performance exhaust line there was a -- the universal type performance mufflers. Alex Fees: And all. Hal Branstetter: And all, really there wasn't I didn't have the sport compact cars at that time. Alex Fees: Sure. Hal Branstetter: So ANSA is kind of a pioneer of direct fit performance because it was designed for and it was of very limited applications. Once again you had the Ferraris and BMWs and they were primarily European applications. So yeah our background goes all the way back to the 70s that we've been with SEMA. Alex Fees: Ok so take me back then if it's seventy's and I buy a Ferrari and I live in America then I need some of the works that you are talking about. There was no standard to make sure that I was going to get it done, you know in a certain ways, is that what you are saying. Hal Branstetter: Well as far as acquiring the product Alex Fees: Right Hal Branstetter: Yeah if you owned a Ferrari back in the 70s the only way to acquire the replacement parts for it were strictly through Ferrari. Alex Fees: I am ordering it from overseas Hal Branstetter: Yeah! So you know it just opened up -- Ferrari was just an addition or not an addition but kind of the root of the product but then we could expand after that. Alex Fees: Right before it was the pioneer if you will and then you going to take it up from there. What about SEMA 2008 here, have you been to this event before personally. Hal Branstetter: Oh! Yes. Alex Fees: What changes are you seeing, how is this going. Hal Branstetter: Well probably the biggest - for us one of the things, we are seeing is two things. There are some vintage applications kind of that retro look, is coming back for us, anyway. We fill our some opportunity there, specially with some of the Ferrari application as I mention, some of the old sport compact look is changing, it's not quite so much shinny bright as much as in Lao, hence it was always based at sound, on the sound, the power is what we always worked with. So I think they are looking for little more sophisticated sound and application. So the vintage it would be one of the things I see a little bit of change coming. If you are going to retro I should say. Alex Fees: That's well represented here at SEMA. Hal Branstetter: It is yes for us I see some of that, I also see some very new and innovative type things. But Retro is definitely something, you'll see something 32 Fords and the stuff like that you'll see them all over the place. And there is lot of guys exhibiting products for that which I do, but just an example of that type there. For us been in an exhaust business you really got to watch regulations, emissions things like that, that is really something that we stay tuned in and watch. And I can see that being a kind of a limitation, we want to upgrade products, we want to really get all the performance we want out of its consumer. But we must also make sure that we follow the guidelines that EPA puts upon us. So and its hard to gain fuel economy and some things like that with that, so with that it -- But we are doing a lot of systems that are based on sound now, rather then you know that. It hard to gain performance, I guess is a bottom line, it's really hard to gain performance when you are limited with those emissions that must be remain on the vehicle. So we work on some things more that are sound and appearance. For the diesel we do which is all behind the converters and a particular filters. We do stacks and all kinds of fancy exhaust design for the diesel trucks which is once again -- You need to talk about stacks versus going to a Ferrari that's a big difference. There is all kind of things you can do with exhaust, so we keep going. Alex Fees: Well Hal where can people go to get more information about ANSA. Hal Branstetter: ANSA you can go to ansaautomotive.com Alex Fees: ansaautomotive.com that's anzaautomotive.com. Hal Branstetter: Also if you want to look at our diesel product. Alex Fees: Hang on, I misspelled it A-N-S-A sounds like ANZA but it's ansaautomotive.com. Hal Branstetter: That's correct there is no z in there. Alex Fees: Right. Hal Branstetter: Also you can go, if you want to look at our stainless steel products, you can get to that through silverlineexhaust.com. Alex Fees: Alright good deal here, again that's Hal Branstetter head of the Sales Manager of ANSA. Hal Branstetter: Thank you. Alex Fees: Good to meet you sir, I appreciate to be in been here. We are SEMA 2008 I am Alex Fees you are logged on to Small Business television.